Lots of people will buy this scanner for its small size and portability. The Visioneer Strobe XP 220, however, is special among small scanners for the Kofax Virtual ReScan (VRS) module that's integrated into the driver. Until recently, the VRS module was available only for document scanners with much higher prices. The 1.5-pound XP 220 is Visioneer's first portable scanner with VRS included.

Unlike most portable scanners, which have just one USB connector, the XP 220 has a combined power cord and USB cable with three connectors that plug into a power outlet, a computer USB port, and the Scanner. This makes it a little less portable than its competitors.

The scanner's 600-pixel-per-inch optical resolution is more than enough for office tasks such as copying, faxing, OCR, and document management. The integrated VRS was impressive on hard-to-scan pages. In one particularly dramatic case, a page printed on orange paper scanned as solid black without VRS but was perfectly readable with VRS.

Photo quality is mediocre, but fortunately, problems with photos don't mean much for a document scanner. If you want a portable scanner with VRS, the XP 220 is the only game in town.